A GHOST STORYDo you like ghost stories? If you do then read on. My wife, our three children and I visited a town called Kingston in South Australia. We wanted a place to stay overnight because it was getting late. We came upon a large three story mansion on the outskirts of the town built in an era when much attention was paid to verandahs and decorative wrought iron railings. There was only one room vacant, a large airy room, long and narrow with beds enough for all of us. The terms were reasonable so we accepted the room and since we were very tired with our journey down the beach road beside the white bleached sands and blue ocean, we retired early. SLeep came easily. We had drunk the sea air and stopped from time to time to walk bare footed across the sands to the sea.

I awoke however about 2am,- I am guessing the time. It was dark outside save for a few blinking stars. I became aware of someone in the room. I lay perfectly still straining my ears to catch the faintest sound but I heard nothing. Then to my surprise I saw a nurse wearing her vale and apron moving from bed to bed. She stopped at the foot of my bed, bent over some object of her attention and passed on to the next bed. I was not in the least frightened but extremely curious. I suppose the years of seeing a familiar sight on night duty at various hospital made her round seem perfectly natural to me. How often I had gone from bed to bed checking the charts and observing the drips and other apparatus. The nurse went about her duty and I went to sleep.

The next morning the children woke first, as usual and we all went to have breakfast.

'Something happened during the night,' my wife said presently. 'I woke to see a priest standing by the door. Did you see him?'

'No, I didn't see a priest but I did see someone. I saw a nurse moving from bed to bed.'

'Really?'

'Yes, as real as you are eating breakfast.'

Before leaving the hotel, I asked the receptionist if the building had a long history.

Oh, yes,' she replied. Over a hundred years. The house used to be a hospital.'

What really happens to souls when their bodies die? It started me thinking about the kind of people who pass on to the next life. I have seen many people die. I have nursed them and shared their last moments with them. Are their lives so attached to the earth that they are unable to pass on to other realms? I thought about the rich man who during his life had great wealth and pleasures. What a painful transition to be without all the things that he loved when his biological life died. Perhaps he suffered greatly because he longed for his body and his pleasures but having none he was in agony of mind and soul. Is this the meaning of hell? I thought then of the nurse and the priest. What made them want to relive their lives of service. Were they appointed by God, like angels, to minister to travellers and children?